Young Case booters blanked by ORR

When you graduate seven seniors, smooth transitions are anything but easy for a young team.The Case Cardinals experienced early growing pains on Wednesday afternoon as they lost their soccer season opener to SCC rival Old Rochester Regional, 5-0 at Case High School.

When you graduate seven seniors, smooth transitions are anything but easy for a young team.The Case Cardinals experienced early growing pains on Wednesday afternoon as they lost their soccer season opener to SCC rival Old Rochester Regional, 5-0 at Case High School.

After keeping the Bulldogs off the map for a majority of the first half, ORR scored a trio of goals in the last ten minutes of play.

Mason Silva powered through traffic towards Case’s goalpost and dished the ball past Cardinals’ goalkeeper William Kelly in the 33rd minute to snap the scoreless tie. Evan Santos doubled the lead minutes later (37:00) and Timothy Dix’s headshot after receiving a corner kick gave the Bulldogs a 3-0 halftime lead.

“Those last ten minutes were what killed us,” said Case first-year coach Steve Manteiga. “But we’ll get better. We fought hard. We’re a young team with six freshmen, so it’s a rebuilding year.”

ORR (1-0) added two more scores in the second half. Alex Tavares sent a worm-burner to the right of the Cardinals’ goalpost in the game’s 60th minute and Dix lofted a floater just below the crossbar ten minutes later for his second goal.

Case made a run for their first goal towards the end, taking three shots on ORR goalie Melvin Vincent, but with little success. Despite the losing outcome, Manteiga praised Kelly, who racked up 17 saves for the Cardinals (0-1) and stopper Matthew Gray, who shined on defense by breaking up passes and preventing more ORR scoring opportunities.

“William faced a lot of shots and Gray played phenomenal,” he said.

Case also got strong physical play from Jonathan Ferreira and midfielder Connor Halpin. ORR outshot Case, 22 to 5. Vincent recorded 5 stops for the Bulldogs.

The Cardinals’ next game takes place Friday afternoon at Dighton-Rehoboth.